Viper in the Lady's Garden
by Alone in the Desert
Summary: How are destructive tendencies bred? A look into the mind of a villain. Standalone


Viper in the Lady's Garden

Disclaimer: All characters and locations herein are the property of Tamora Pierce, except Laja and Qifar. Plot and actual written words owned by me.

The Grand Bazaar of Chammur buzzed with buyers and sellers of anything imaginable, even at this dusky hour. Merchants kept close eyes on the good that filled their stalls, and the more prosperous had hired guards, tall, intimidating and armed with batons or recurved daggers. Dark, suspicious eyes trailed anyone who might be a thief, notably rag-clothed children and adolescents.

For a boy who matched that description, the bazaar was a mystical, taunting land of never kept promises. Many stalls sold food, and the boy eyed bread, goat cheese, dates and apricots with ravenous eyes and a rumbling stomach. The summer winds made the day hot and dry, but by sundown the chill of night would creep, merciless on those who walked barefoot and wore torn, thin-worn shirts. Not for the first time, Ikrum Fazhal wished he were someone else.

Someone older, Ikrum decided, someone strong. It was then that he felt a friendly tap on his shoulder, from behind. Posed to flee, Ikrum turned around. The girl behind him was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, almost twice his age. She smiled at him.

"Hungry?" she asked.

Ikrum nodded, still wary.

"Cold?"

"Not yet, but I will be," said the boy.

The strange girl laughed. "Where'd you get that?" she asked.

His hand flew up to his face where he could feel, rather than see, the bruise that spread from his left eye and down over his cheek. He had found a piece of bread in a garbage heap outside a tavern, good bread, dry but not moldy. The only problem was, two older boys had seen him picking through the trash…

"What's it to you?" he demanded of the girl suspiciously.

"Lose your supper in a fight?" Her face was so kind, so understanding.

"Maybe."

"I bet the ones who took this were bigger than you," she said, "and older. And I bet they hit you in other places, too."

Ikrum crossed his arms over his small chest, feeling the bruises that were spread over his ribs, and glared at her. "What if they were?" he asked. "So are you. How do I know you won't just beat me up?"

The girl laughed again. "What for?" she asked reasonably. "'Sides, I know what it's like to be beaten on. Used to be all the time, when I was your age. Before I joined the Vipers."

"The Vipers?" asked the boy, interested despite himself. Someone stronger, and older, like this girl.

She held out her right hand to him, where he could see two tiny pinpricks on the back on her hand. Then she flipped it over; two twin pricks on her palm. "The Vipers," she said again.

"Why me?" asked Ikrum.

She shrugged. "From the look of you, you only hit the street a little while ago. If you stay alone, you'll die soon. If you join the Vipers you'll have work and food, and brothers and sisters to protect you."

Ikrum thought it over for a moment. "What do I have to do?"

* * *

Laja was looking at him encouragingly from the crowd that gathered in the dark, behind the torches. Ikrum gulped as he looked away from her and to the slithering creature uncomfortably near him. He steeled himself. He'd never be a man if he couldn't stop being afraid, she'd said. He sat down on an upturned crate, a little harder than he'd've liked. 

"Ready?" the _tesku_ asked.

Ikrum nodded.

The _tesku_ held the serpent firmly by the throat, bringing its triangular head closer to Ikrum's outstretched hand. He tried to concentrate his eyes on the snake's body, not it's head with the split tongue and awful teeth. The snake was a sandy brown, with darker brown blotches running down the sides of its sleek, scaly body, and a line of brown zigzagging along its back. When he looked at it that way, it was almost pretty, and – he yelped when he felt the sharp string in his hand.

The crowd behind the _tesku_ and the boys holding the torches cheered, and Laja grinned at him, holding one thumb up. People he didn't know came up to him to clap him on the back and welcome him to the Vipers.

"You're one of us, now," said the _tesku_ with a smile, handing him a gray rag.

* * *

In six years with the Vipers, Ikrum had seen the _tesku_ who'd initiated him killed by another, and that one again replaced when he lost his status in battle. He'd seen Laja's throat slit in a territory fight with another gang. He'd seen his wounds bleed and fester because the _tesku_ wouldn't space a _dav_ for a healer to clean and bandage them. He'd seen his hands wrapped around some stranger's throat, squeezing the breath out of it, only moments after the stranger had dropped him a coin to pass a message. 

Six years was a long time, Ikrum knew. He knew he could've died a dozen times, and he knew he might die tomorrow. Still he intended to do what he'd decided, even knowing that he still might. He had no heart for the sorting of copper and silver from the Vipers' latest loot; he had more important things on his mind. When he stood, the lair grew very quiet.

Qifar was leaning idly on the doorframe, watching the others counting. When Ikrum stood, he tossed him a careless glance, as though it was a favor. His expression didn't change when Ikrum pulled a dagger out of its hiding place in the small of his back. He even looked bored.

"Fine, Ikrum," he said, "let's fight."

Within a breath the middle of the lair was cleared, as the Vipers sat close to the walls, all curious eyes on the two boys who stood in the middle, under the only lamp.

Qifar pulled out his own dagger, kept in a sheath on his shin. "Let's start."

Ikrum didn't need an order from him; he was already circling the other boy, focused, calculating. He could take him, he was sure of it. Qifar was older than him, but he was taller and stronger. He'd climbed the walls of the Grand Bazaar a hundred times, running from the Watch or rushing to fight the Gate Lords when they preyed on Viper burglars and pickpockets. Qifar was lazy, and liked to let others do the work.

The fight wasn't long. Ikrum ignored the cuts in his shoulder and side and concentrated on what he knew would have to happen. That was how he found Qifar's weakness, when he lunged for his stomach. The dagger lodged deep, and Ikrum pulled it up through the chest, then finally pulled it out with difficulty and stabbed the dying _tesku_ through the heart. Just because he was a lazy idiot, didn't mean he had to be left to bleed to death. He was, after all, a Viper.

The others watched him as he stripped Qifar of all his knives, piling them beside the body for those who needed to take. Finally he wiped the two bloody daggers on the dead boy's tunic and kept them for himself, crossed over the small of his back, like a crest. Then he untied the beaded gray band from Qifar's right arm and wrapped it around his own, over the plain one.

He looked around him. "You," he ordered, "bury Qifar's body. You hand out these knives. The rest of you stay here and finish what we started. Except Sajiv and Orlana. You come with me; we're going into that shop we saw yesterday."

They did as he said.

* * *

He'd been _tesku_ for two years the night he and Orlana were wandering the Grand Bazaar, and noticed her. It was nearly midnight, not a time in which reputable women did their shopping. Taking one look at her black silken skirts and the gold and sapphire bangles on her arms, Ikrum made his decision. 

"Find one of the others," he told Orlana quietly, and began shadowing the woman, creeping from alley to corner.

He had no doubt that his Vipers would find him. When Orlana returned with Yoru, he showed them the woman and they nodded, understanding just what he meant. Yoru vanished the left, while Ikrum and Orlana continued to tail the prostitute. When Ikrum gave the signal, they rushed out ahead of her, crowding her until her only way out was to retreat into the alley where Yoru was already waiting to grab her from behind while Orlana and Ikrum gathered her jewelry.

It wasn't a breath before Ikrum's perfect plan rotted away into dust. A mustached man held a sword ready to behead Yoru, Orlana's mouth was stifled by the huge hand of a tall, fat man and the woman Ikrum was meaning to rob was now pressing a , sharp blade to his throat, dark eyes flashing over her sheer face veil.

His mind reeled, filled with thoughts that flashed and disappeared.He grabbed at them, but caught only one image -- the dagger in his own hand, when he finished off Qifar. He couldn't bleed to death; that was too awful. There was really only one thing he could say.

"Cut hard and fast and get it over with." His life wasn't worth that much, anyway.

The woman with the black silk veil laughed.

**

* * *

**

He'd been the one to grab the girl _pahan_ the Lady wanted, the one to force sleepy juice over her nose until she fainted. He'd led the Vipers who sneaked into the _eknub_ house to take her, then brought her back to the lair, and from there to the Lady's house. He'd seen what she did to the rocks of the lair, had heard stories about the fire stones and monster plants that chased those who followed her.

That's why he wasn't surprised when, an hour after he'd brought her to the Lady, the trees and vines of the Lady's garden came alive with movements that could break and kill. Somehow, he knew something had to go wrong. He'd known when Sajiv, then Orlana, disappeared. Maybe he'd even known that night when the Lady drank coffee with him and said he had courage, twice.

It made no difference, really, decided Ikrum as he wandered away from the mad garden, into the house and toward the Lady's private rooms. He'd done what he'd done, made his choices, a long time ago. He knew to begin with he would die, so why put it off? He just wanted it to be as quick as possible. That, and to be as near the Lady as possible. So he followed the two _eknub_ voices who followed her, to kill her with their mad magic.

Like he'd done so often in the Grand Bazaar, he creeped through the back ways to get ahead of them and waited, armed. When they passed he lunged at them with a dagger in either hand. His fight with the boy didn't last long. When he felt the floor cave under him, he swore violently. It was the end, for him and for her both. A _thukdak_ like him, dying like this in the house of a great lady, between her marble and gold walls, buried under the floor of her palace. He might have laughed, but he had no air left.

* * *

Glossary 

_Eknub_: foreigner.

_Pahan_: mage.

_Tesku_: gang leader.

_Thukdak_: street rat.


End file.
